Motivation is really needed in our
daily life. Activities that we have done, we do, and we are going to do, have a
motivation as the foundation of our activities. Motivation in Latin is movere which means move. Everyone have
motivation in work and study. Motivation is energy of moving, directing, and building
attitude (Thomas L. Good and Jere B. Brophy, 1986). There is also similar
description about motivation according to Wlodkowski, “motivation is condition
that creates certain behavior and giving direction into that behavior”. There
is a motivation when someone wanted to do an action. This motivation becomes a plan
and makes people intend to do something to get their expectations. There is
also a theory about motivation from Abraham Maslow, “Human beings have wants and desires which influence their
behavior. Only unsatisfied needs influence behavior, satisfied needs do not”.
According to that statement, someone is motivated to get something that he/she
has not gotten yet. He/she has a strong desire to achieve his/her expectation
in order to get satisfaction. For they who have not gotten their satisfaction,
they will keep trying to get satisfaction by changing their plan or method. Motivation
in work and study is a big deal to get the best result. In work, motivation
should be had by workers or be given to the workers to get excellent result for
the company and a better salary for the workers themselves. It is not different
in study. Students need motivation from themselves (from their mind) that we usually
call as intrinsic motivation and motivation from other things (family,
neighborhood, school, and society) that usually we called as extrinsic
motivation. In a teaching program, beside the students’ responsibility in
motivating themselves, it is also the teacher’s responsibility to give
motivation and support to the students in study. The case is, how the teacher
can give motivation to the students by analyzing from the problems that
students have, how to solve it, and the challenges in motivating students.
Basically, motivation is divided
into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation can be
described as a motivation that is driven by interest and enjoyment in the task
itself, and it is relay on the personal attitude. In a simple word, it is motivation
that comes from people mind to achieve his/her personal goal and expectation.
In the learning process, students should have motivation to be able to
understand the lesson. Professor Steven Reiss has proposed a theory about
desires in the aspect of intrinsic motivation and one of them is curiosity. In the
learning process, curiosity here means that the students have a strong desire
in learning. The students need to learn in order to fulfill their purpose. As
the curiosity is increasing, students will not feel satisfied in learning. They
will keep learning because as the students who have a big curiosity, they will
always want to learn and try a new thing. In learning process, sometimes there
are unmotivated students who need extrinsic motivation from their family. In
the learning process it is teacher’s responsibility to give motivation to the
students.
As the opposite of intrinsic
motivation, it is extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is motivation that
comes from outside of the individual. Sometimes people get extrinsic motivation
when they are unmotivated. People also get extrinsic motivation in order to get
prestige. Extrinsic motivation is also described as a will to get a goal that
will give external rewards such as money, grades, coercion and threat of
punishment. Teacher gives motivation to unmotivated students so that they get
more effort in studying. External motivation also must be given to students by
their family. In a simple illustration, the teacher gives a task to students
and will give objective grade for the result. By doing this, students will be more
motivated in doing the task well. There is also Self-Determination Theory which
gives a fact that extrinsic motivation can be internalized by the individual if
the task fits with their value and beliefs, so that it can be intrinsic motivation
that helps people to fulfill their basic need. For example: when students are
given motivation to study hard, they can get a good grade. During the learning
process they will consider about another purpose in study. They will find that
study is not only aiming to get a good grade, but also for their knowledge
improvement.
In the learning process, there are
several cases that make students need to be given a motivation. That is not
only the cases about unmotivated students, but also the cases about students
who get negative motivation and need to be given the positive one. The basic
problem is when students think that they study because of their parents force.
This is a kind of negative motivation. Motivation in studying can be seen
through the attitude of the students about their will, attention, and
concentration in study (Anderson, C.R and Faust, G.W, 1979) Students who get
this negative motivation will seem so lazy in class. They do not pay attention
to the lesson that is presented by the teacher. They will lay their head in the
table, sleep, keep chatting with other friends and hope that the lesson will be
over soon. These students will not get the idea of the lesson and in particular
ways, they will disturb the others who want to study quietly. The students who
are forced to study will use school as a place for hang out, not a place for
study. In some cases, students also use school to create a gang. If the group
is used as a media to share experience and create a good relationship between
the members. But it will be worse when the gang is growth with anarchy. It is
like the fight that happened in some cities. The gang of one school becomes the
enemy of the gang of other schools. They fight just because of a simple problem,
like when one of them accidentally touches the gang member. Sometimes students
who are not belonging to a gang of their school are attacked by another gang
which is the rival of the gang in their school. This fight between school gang
sometimes gives disadvantages to people around the fight. People around the
fight feel afraid because the gangs who fight bring weapon with them. The gangs
usually smash and break public facilities. Of course no one in society wants
something like this is happened.
The other problem is
self-confidence. Actually this is not only a problem for students, but also
people in the world. They sometimes think that they are not able to do
something well. When this thing happened, it will affect people’s attitude.
From their thought, they have gotten a negative motivation that they will not be
able to do something well. Then it influences their work in achieving
something. Considered to the fact in daily life, students who study to head for
exam think that the exam must be hard and they think that they will not be able
to do the exam well. It will affect their attitude in studying and working the
exam. At the exam day, they will get nervous and this condition will make them
unable to get concentration. As this nervous and less concentration, an easy
question can be a hard question to answer and make the possibility of mistake
and wrong answer is more than in regular situation. Furthermore, when students
feel that they have failed in the exam, they will get depressed. Under
depression, students feel that they will not be able to do the other exam
better because they have studied but they still failed. It makes students do
not have intention to study harder because their thought that they will not
pass the final exam. They do not know that although they fail in an exam, they
can still do another exam better by study harder. It is true what they say that
fail in do something do not mean you are failure person.
And for the most common problem is organizing
the schedule between playing, studying, and resting. For youngsters, play time
is the most important. When they have reached the teenager phase, it is their
time to study and plan for their bright future. And in the elderly phase, it is
time for them to rest and enjoy their achievement in life. Those three things
are what everyone wants. In fact, life is not just as easy as that, especially
when in teenager phase. It is the phase where teenagers as students have to maintain
their schedule. It is good if students always study hard, but it will be not
good if they forget about other works. In 24 hours, it can be divided into
three. Eight hours is used for study, eight hours for resting and the rest is
for playing. Keep study until midnight is not suggested because our body needs
rest and our mind needs relaxation. For instance: students who keep studying
till midnight will get sleepy in the next day because they do not have enough
time to sleep. Studying all day without having time for relaxation can give
headaches. Students need to find an activity after they study to relax their
mind. Maintaining a schedule is not as easy as people thing, especially for students.
Sometimes they need someone else to help them maintain the schedule. Some students
who are unmotivated in study usually have more time to play and take a rest
rather than having time to study. More often they play, lazier they are in
study. Although there are smart students with high level of IQ (Intelligence Quotient),
they still need study to improve their knowledge and sharpen their memory of
lesson that they have gotten.
The problems that happen in studying
about the unmotivated students have made learning process being interrupted.
That is why the teachers and students need to understand how to give motivation
and be motivated by someone else. As the main thing, students have to motivate
themselves first. They need to maintain their mindset that studying is not
responsibility, but it is one of their needs. Education is needed by students
as a path to reach their goals. Although sometimes there are people who
uneducated in formal school can reach their prosperity, that is because they
have skill and knowledge about their job. They learn from others who have succeeded.
It makes an argument that formal and informal schools are different in way of reaching
people’s goals. In fact, they are just a place to find knowledge and learning
activity. So, it is not about students must study in formal school as their
responsibility, but they have to study from everywhere, anytime, and from any
source or by learning from others achievement because they need it to reach
their goals.
After students have reset their
mindset about study, the next thing they need to do is manage their time
between study, play, and take a rest. Considering to the statement before, that
in 24 hours students have to divide it into three phase and they are: 8 hours
to study, 8 hours to play in order to refresh their mind, and the last 8 hours
to take a rest in order to refresh their body. These 8 hours can also be
managed again. Playing in entire 8 hours seems little bit inappropriate for
students. They can manage it into 4 hours to play games that have educative
value and the rest for fully relaxing. Beside managing time in a day, students
also need to arrange their plans. They have to decide which task that must be
done first by considering which one is urgent and which one is important. Usually,
something that people have been planed is not going like what they want. Not
every plan that has been arranged well can reach their goals. When they fail to
reach the goal, they get depressed. This kind of thing also happens in
students’ life. Students will get depressed or at least shocked when they get a
bad grade or do not pass the exam. If this depression keep happens for a long
time, students’ confidence will be gone. In this situation, the existence of
parents and teachers is needed. Teacher and parents must give motivation to
students that students can make their grade better. Failure does not mean that
the students have no ability in doing the exam, but they have not ready to get
the better grade because of some reasons. Teachers then explain about the
reasons which are the fact that they have not study hard enough, they have not
understood the lesson and do not want to ask someone who know more. In other
way, the students can also follow a course in order to get additional time for
study.
Other way that teacher can do to
motivate students in school is giving tasks and fair grades. A task or homework
will ask the students to study. Their need of getting a good grade makes them
study to do the task or the homework well. For some students, they do not know that
the teachers give them tasks because the teachers want them to have
more study and evaluating what they have learn in school. So, they just copy
their friends’ work then submit it. In this case, the teacher needs to give a
fair grade for the students work. The teacher must analyze whether the student
do the task by himself/herself or he/she just copy it from their friends’ work.
After correcting the students’ work, then teacher gives
scores on
it and gives suggestions in that worksheet. The teacher must tell
students what the mistake in their work is. So, the students know how to avoid
that mistake again in the next task. For the students who cheat in working the
task, it is allright if the teacher gives punishment to them. But this
punishment must be refered to educational punishment. Teacher gives a similar task to the students who cheat is the case in
point.
Motivating students in the learning process
is challenging. One
of the challenge is the case in giving reward and punishment. Inappropriate
punishment just gives students more unmotivated feeling. The more they feel
enforced by the teacher, more they hate the teacher and it will influence the
affection of the students in the lesson. The
punishment that is given to the students must refer to educational punishment
and it is not interrupting learning process in class. For example: the teacher
can give additional homework to the student. Besides that, not all of
motivation that is given by the teacher can be received by the students easily.
Students also have their own thought about the motivation that is given. In an
illustration, students who have been given motivation like getting reward when
do the job well, not always really need the reward. The reward that is promised
can be interesting for several students, but not all of them. In this case, the
teachers should look for the kind of reward that their students need. It is
easy to give rewards for elementary school students, but when teaching high
school student, teachers have to think again about the reward that will be
given for the students. The reward that is wanted by the students will motivate
them, but the reward that is not wanted by the students will do nothing in
motivating them. The other challenge in motivating students is support from the
family. From the explanation before, motivating students is not only the
responsibility of the teachers, but also the responsibility of the parents. Motivations
which come from the teacher not always saved in students mind and it is easy to
fade away. They use that motivation only when they are at school. That is why
support from the parents is needed to remind them about the right motivation in
study.
Giving
the wrong motivation (negative motivation) to students will give them difficulties
in understanding the lesson. Furthermore, it is not really important to get a
good or bad grade. The important thing is how far and how the students can
understand the point of the lesson. It is still a big challenge to change this
mindset of students in study.
In summary, motivating students is
important to develop education in every nation. Although giving motivation is
not easy because of the different needs, the way to motivate, and the challenge
in motivating students. It still can be done by the cooperation between
students, teachers, parents, and society. From several subjects that have been
explained before, the purpose and function of motivating students can be understood.
Several of them are developing education, changing the mindset of study, and
helping to achieve students’ goals. To achieve these purposes, students must
have motivated themselves to study hard and get motivation from teachers,
parents, and society to study harder. For teachers, to be able to motivating
their students, there are several steps to do. First, teachers should
understand what problems that are headed by the students. Second, teachers
solve those problems using educational methods. Third, teachers give motivation
consider to what that students need and cooperative work with students,
parents, and society. By doing these several steps, the students will be more
motivated to study in a positive way.
Moehamat Hendrik Setiawan
